When this film was first released in 1994, it earned a modest $58 million at the box office, and though it was nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture), it went home empty-handed on Oscar night. A new generation of Internet-age fans, however, have embraced Frank Darabont's directorial debut big time, ranking it the best movie ever on the influential website IMDb. Darabont earned his first Oscar nomination for adapting Stephen King's novella about the friendship between a prison lifer (Morgan Freeman, also Oscar-nominated) and a quiet banker (Tim Robbins) unjustly convicted of murder.